private collections, prove him to have been a painter of no ordinary merit. He was especially skilful in representing the rich costumes of his day, but he lacks the delicate touch, and the power of giving natural expression to his portraits, of his master. His drawing is generally hard and "dry." Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (b. in Madrid, 1551; d. about 1609) was Sanchez Coello's best pupil. He was employed by Philip II. and Philip III. and their courts, and painted the latter king on horseback for the fine bronze statue commenced in Italy by Giovanni da Bologna, and finished by Tacca, now in the Plaza Mayor, at Madrid. The pictures by him of religious subjects in the Madrid Gallery are of inferior merit, but his portraits in the same collection prove him to have been a skilful painter.

99.66

A more truly Spanish painter than any of the former was Luis de Morales, called "El Divino Morales," more from his painting subjects of divinity than from any divinity of painting." He was born at Badajoz early in the 16th century. His works have obtained a reputation which they do not deserve. His drawing is so defective in its conventional stiffness, and in expression he is so grotesquely unnatural and exaggerated, that it is scarcely to be believed that he lived nearly a century later than the great Umbrian painters. His colour is ashy and disagreeable in tone; the subjects of his pictures are generally the Agony of Christ, and the Sorrows of the Virgin; and he has a certain vulgar power of rendering intense physical suffering and strong emotions, which make them popular in Spain. Spanish writers on art, indeed, do not hesitate to rank his works with those of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The most that can be said for them is that they show a certain individuality, which has been coarsely imitated by others whose works pass for those of the master. In the Madrid Gallery are some characteristic pictures by Morales, such as the 'Presentation of the Infant Christ in the Temple' (No. 849).

Another Spanish painter, who, like Morales, enjoys, both in Spain and elsewhere, a higher reputation than he deserves, is Vicente Juan Macip, usually known as Juan de Juanes. He was born about 1523, in the province of Valencia, and studied in Italy, copying the works of Raphael and his school. The Spaniards boastfully call him the "Spanish Raphael." His best pictures are at Valencia; but the Madrid Gallery possesses some characteristic examples-such as the series representing the martyrdom of St. Stephen. His portraits are sometimes excellent. He was a brilliant colourist, and was successful in representing costume and drapery; but in drawing, grace of composition and harmony of tone, in fact in all the highest qualities of his art, he was far behind the great Italian painters who preceded him by half a century, and whom he but feebly imitated. Yet his heads of Christ have been compared by some critics with those of Leonardo da Vinci! He died in 1579.

In the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries many Italian painters, encouraged by the liberal patronage of the Spanish kings of the House of Austria, came to Spain. They were employed in decorating the halls of the Escorial, and of other royal palaces, and in painting for churches and convents. Pedro Campaña, although a Fleming by birth (he was born in Brussels in 1503), had studied in Italy, and had formed his style upon the Italian masters. He settled in Spain and painted, in 1548, the celebrated picture of 'The Descent from the Cross, now in the Cathedral of Seville, which was so much admired by Murillo that, by his desire, he

was buried in front of it.

Vicente Carducci or Carducho (born at Florence, 1585; died in Madrid, 1638) was brought to Spain by his brother Bartolomeo. According to Cean Bermudez, he exercised great influence on Spanish painting by his works, and by the 'Dialogues on Art' which he published. His principal pictures, now in the Ministry of the Fomento (Public Works) at Madrid, representing the Life of S. Bruno, were painted for the monks of the Cartuja del Paular. They are in the broad and somewhat academical manner of the Italian eclectic schools of his time. Eugenio Caxés (b. 1577; d. 1642) was the son of a Florentine painter established in Spain. He was also employed in decorating the palaces of Philip III. One of his principal works is The Landing of the English at Cadiz under Lord Wimbledon,' in the Madrid Gallery. The portraits in this picture are not ill painted, but the composition is clumsy and the colouring feeble.

These, and other Italian painters, such as Antonio Rizzi, Pellegrino Pellegrini, Nardi, and Zuccaro, and Spaniards who had studied in Italy, such as Navarrete, Ribalta, and especially Ribera, may be said to have founded that school which is generally known as the "Spanish," and which includes the great names of Velasquez and Murillo. Juan Fernandez Navarrete, called " El Mudo," or "the Dumb," from his infirmity (b. at Logroño, 1526; d. 1579), studied in Italy, and principally at Venice, where he formed his style which earned for him the title of "the Spanish Titian." His works, which are distinguished by a free and broad treatment, especially in the draperies, are for the most part in the Escorial. Two pictures in the Madrid Gallery, attributed to Sebastian del Piombo, are believed to be copies or imitations by El Mudo. Francisco de Ribalta (d. 1628) went young to Italy, where he studied the works of Raphael, Sebastian del Piombo, and their great cotemporaries so successfully that he is said to have been able to pass off, even in Rome, his pictures for originals by those masters. His manner and colour were Italian, modified by Spanish influence. One characteristic example of Ribalta is in the Madrid Gallery, An Angel appearing to St. Francis of Assisi' (No. 947); but his principal works are to be seen at Valencia. His son and scholar, Juan de Ribalta, died young in the same year as his father, whose manner he so closely imitated that his works frequently pass for those of Francisco Ribalta. José Ribera, although a Spaniard by birth and by character, may be considered rather as an Italian than a Spanish painter. He was born in the province of Valencia in 1588, and was placed as a boy under Francisco Ribalta. He went young to Italy, where he became a follower and imitator of Caravaggio and other painters of the Naturalistic school, who were then in fashion. Settling in Naples, he soon became celebrated as the "Spagnoletto," or little Spaniard. He painted a multitude of pictures, chiefly religious, of a gloomy and generally horrible character, such as martyrdoms, tortures, and executions. Some fifty specimens of his works may be studied in the Madrid Gallery, and there is scarcely a collection in Europe without them. The reputation which he had acquired in Naples soon extended to Spain, where his pictures were eagerly bought. No painter had so great an influence in forming the Spanish school, of which Velasquez and Murillo are at the head, as Ribera, although he himself never returned to his native country. He died at Naples in 1656, after having acquired great wealth, and many enemies, on account of his imperious, jealous, and vin

dictive disposition. A good example of his softer manner is the 'Jacob's Dream,' and of his savage manner the 'Martyrdom of S. Bartholomew,' both in the Madrid Gallery.

Two other Spanish painters may be mentioned who were close imitators of the Italian masters, Pedro Orrente and Francisco Collantes. The former (d. in Toledo 1644), called the "Spanish Bassano," introduced cattle and sheep into religious subjects after the manner of that master, whom he rivalled, if he did not excel, in richness of colour. One of his best works is the Martyrdom of Santa Leocadia,' in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Toledo. The Madrid Gallery contains one or two of his pictures in imitation of Jacopo Bassano. Collantes (b. 1599; d. 1656), a scholar of Vicente Carducci, was dry, cold, and academical in his drawing and colour. His best picture is the 'Vision of Ezekiel' in the Madrid Gallery (No. 705)— a repulsive subject cleverly treated. He was principally known by the landscapes he painted for the Buen Retiro Palace, which perished by fire.

A painter, not a Spaniard, but who lived and worked in Spain, must not be omitted, more on account of the false reputation he has acquired than for his merits-Domenico Theotocopuli, called "El Greco," from the country of his birth. He died at Toledo in 1625, and is classed by Spanish writers on art amongst Spanish painters. He studied, in Italy, the Venetian masters, especially Tintoretto, whom he at times imitated, not without some success, especially in his portraits. Spain he fell into a disagreeable, monotonous tone of colouring of an ashy grey, which, with execrable drawing, render the greater number of his pictures singularly disagreeable, if not absolutely repulsive. Some in the Madrid Gallery are almost caricatures. His best work is, per

In

haps, the Burial of the Count of Orgaz,' in the church of Santo Tomé at Toledo.

The Spanish school, as it has been shown, was not, in the true sense of the term, an original school. It was essentially Italian, modified by national disposition and local circumstances. The narrow bigotry of the people and of their rulers, the terrors of the Inquisition, and the influence of the priest, gave to it that sombre, religious, and naturalistic character, which distinguishes the works of almost every Spanish painter of the 17th and 18th centuries. Accomplished gentlemen and scholars, such as Ford and Stirling, and some French writers on art, obtained for the Spanish masters an exaggerated and fictitious reputation, which their works, now better known, have failed to sustain. The attempt to divide them into four schools-those of Seville, Madrid, Valencia, and Castilehas now been abandoned even by Spanish art-critics.* The traveller who takes the trouble to look into the question, and to visit the galleries which have been formed in Granada, Valladolid, Valencia, and other cities, will probably agree with them. The Spanish school, properly so called, had but a short existence in the 17th century, and only produced two really great painters-Velasquez and Murillo-and they do not rank with the greatest Italian masters. They hold a second place in art. Their cotemporaries, Zurbaran, del Mazo, Alonso Cano, Herrera, Roelas, and some others, were unquestionably men of ability, but far inferior to Velasquez and Murillo,

See preface to the Catalogue of the Madrid Gallery,' by Don Pedro de Madrazo.

and to the Italian masters even of the third class. However, this is a question upon which a traveller may form his own judgment without fear of offending any generally accepted canons of criticism.

The Spanish school is neither well nor fully represented in any public or private collection in Spain. The Museum of the Prado, at Madrid, is, however, exceedingly rich in the works of Velasquez and Murillo, although deficient in those of other Spanish painters. The public gallery of Seville contains some excellent Murillos, and good examples of Zurbaran and Roelas. In cathedrals and churches, especially those of Seville, the traveller will find interesting and important pictures by the principal masters, both of the early and later times; but they are generally ill seen. They are frequently placed in "Retablos," or vast altar-pieces of carved and gilded wood, which are peculiar to Spain. The public collections in the provincial cities and towns are, for the most part, beneath notice. No important private gallery, accessible to the traveller, now exists in the Peninsula. In that of the Duke of Pastrana, at Madrid, are some fine works by Rubens and Vandyke, inherited from the last Duke of Infantado. Portraits by good Spanish painters, even, it is said, by Velasquez, are still in the possession of grandee families. But the French marauder and the foreign picture-dealer have swept the Peninsula pretty clean of its works of art. Out-of-the-way towns and villages which may still possess interesting pictures are indicated in the Handbook.

Don Diego Velasquez de Silva, or simply Velasquez, the greatest painter that Spain has produced, was born at Seville, in 1599, of parents of Portuguese origin, and died at Madrid in 1660. He married in his youth the daughter of Francisco Pacheco, a painter of inferior merit, but a learned writer on art, from whose advice and instruction he derived much advantage. Velasquez showed from his childhood a genius for painting. He began by copying carefully from nature, still life, and living models, forming himself upon the study of pictures by Ribera and by Italian masters of the Naturalistic school, which had been brought from Italy to Spain. The best examples of his first manner are "The Adoration of the Kings' and his famous Borrachos,' or drunkards, in the Madrid Gallery. In them the influence of Caravaggio and Ribera is very evident. In the twenty-third year of his age he came to Madrid, and, attracting the notice of influential persons, was soon taken into the service of Philip IV. -an enthusiastic lover of art, and himself a painter. He remained there for the rest of his life, and his pictures were almost exclusively painted for his royal patron and for the grandees of the Spanish court. A friendship with Rubens, who was in Madrid as ambassador from the King of England, in 1628, and two visits to Italy, in 1629 and 1648, led him to modify his early manner. From the study at Venice of the masterpieces of Titian and Tintoret, he acquired a greater harmony and transparency of colour, and a freer and firmer touch, without departing from that truthful representation of nature which he always sought to attain. On his second visit to Italy he chiefly studied in Rome. He again changed his style: his colouring became more what the Italians term "sfumato," or hazy; and he returned, to some extent, to his early general soberness of tone, rarely introducing bright colours into his last pictures. Velasquez's second and third manners, as well as his first, are fully represented in the Madrid Gallery, which contains no less than 60 of his

pictures, or almost the whole of his genuine works. The 'Borrachos' have already been mentioned as an example of his first manner. The fine portrait of the Infante Don Carlos, second son of Philip III. (No. 1073), is another. In his second manner are the 'Surrender of Breda' (No. 1060), perhaps the finest representation and treatment of a cotemporary historical event in the world; the magnificent portrait of the Count of Benavente (No. 1090), and the four Dwarfs. In his third, the 'Meninas' (No. 1062), and the 'Hilanderas' (No. 1061). By studying these pictures the traveller will soon be able to distinguish between the three manners of the painter, and to decide for himself as to the genuineness of the many pictures which pass for Velasquez's in the public and private galleries of Europe.

It was principally as a portrait-painter that Velasquez excelled. Although he wanted the imagination of Titian, and gave less dignity and refinement than that great master to his portraits, yet in a marvellous power of rendering nature, and in truthfulness of expression, he was not his inferior. In the imaginative faculties he was singularly deficient, as his 'Forge of Vulcan,' the 'Coronation of the Virgin,' and other works of that class in the Madrid Gallery, are sufficient to prove. However, the 'Crucifixion,' in the same collection, is a grand and solemn conception, which has excited the enthusiastic admiration of some critics. Velasquez was essentially a "naturalistic" painter. In the representation of animals, especially dogs, and of details such as armour, drapery, and objects of stilllife, he is almost without a rival. His freedom of touch and power of producing truthful effects by the simplest means are truly wonderful. His aerial perspective, his light and shade, his gradations of tone and colour, are all equally excellent, and have excited the admiration of Wilkie, and of the best judges of art.

The high offices which Velasquez held at Court gave him but little time to paint. The number of his pictures is, therefore, comparatively small. They were principally executed for the royal palaces; those which have escaped the fires that destroyed so many great works have been removed to the Madrid Museum. The portraits which are attributed to him in many public and private collections out of Spain are, for the most part, by his pupils, or imitators, and copyists. One of the most skilful of the latter was a certain Lucas, who, not many years ago, succeeded in deceiving many collectors. Amongst his best scholars were: Juan Bautista del Mazo (d. 1667), his son-in-law. How nearly he approached his master may be seen by his admirable portrait of D. Tiburcio de Redin, and the view of Zaragoza, in which the figures have even been attributed to Velasquez, in the Madrid Gallery (Nos. 789 and 788). Pareja, his half-caste slave, and afterwards freedman (d. 1670), who imitated his master in his portraits, but not in his religious and other subjects, in which he followed the Dutch and Italian painters of the time; as in his Calling of St. Mark,' in the same Gallery. Carreño, a member of a noble family (b. 1614; d. 1685), who succeeded Velasquez as court painter, and who is chiefly known by his portraits of the idiot King (Charles II.), his mother, Mariana of Austria, Don John of Austria (not the hero of Lepanto), and other royal and courtly persons of the period. Spanish writers on art rank him with Vandyke, to whom, however, he was greatly inferior. His colouring is generally insipid, and wanting in vigour.